. >> reporter: for professor philip resnick, the first general election debate of 2012 marked the call nation of one -- culmination of one full year of hard work. >> i'm looking forward to seeing the technology in action on this scale. >> reporter: a computer scientist at the university of maryland, he developed the software program that was launched while president obama and mitt romney dualed in denver. >> this is all about a new way to tap into people's opinions. >> reporter: an internet-based software program that instantly recorded the reactions of about 500 students watching the debate here in college park and perhaps another 10,000 college students at schools all around the country. >> they are looking on their smartphone at a screen that has buttons that say agree, disagree, spin, dodge. you hear something you agree with, tap it. >> reporter: not surprisingly given the audience, president obama got his biggest spikes of support when talking about reducing the costs of education while mitt romney did not fair nearly as well with the liberal leaning college crowd as the debate we